), The Secret Science of Solving Crossword Puzzles, Racist Phrases to Remove From Your Mental Lexicon. Or would the Sun rotate around the massive Earth? Season 2 of "What If" takes you to an imaginary world where the laws of nature have been altered... People on Earth talk a lot about colonizing Mars. Some 13.8 billion years ago, a very hot, small and dense singularity expanded into what we now call the... Are you one of those people who hate these little crawling things? How cool would it be to live on a real-life Tatooine with two suns in the sky? What would happen to our planetary neighbors? At that point, the Earth would be reduced to the size of a sesame seed. Let’s try this again. It’s difficult to comprehend the size of that big burning ball of gas in the sky, especially as it is 149,600,000 kilometers (92,957,130 miles) away. Of course, there would be no life left on this hot star, but here’s a cool thing. A planet that big would generate enough heat and pressure in its core to become a star itself. In terms of mass, the Sun weighs approximately 333,000 times more than Earth. How much Bigger is the Sun than the Earth. We’re fortunate to be in the Sun’s habitable zone. In either scenario, life on Earth would have no chance to survive. It takes about 305 Earth years for this dwarf planet to make one trip around the sun. Imagine you were able to shrink the Sun to the size of a basketball. That’s no happy ending for life on Earth. When one divides these numbers, the result is … What If All Humans Suddenly Disappeared From The Earth. You might think that by making it smaller in size, it would just turn it into a red dwarf with a smaller habitable zone. It would take the equivalent of 1.3 million Earths to fill up the volume of the Sun. The diameter of the Sun is approximately 864,948 miles while the diameter of Earth is only 7,926 miles. But that’s not the case. And so does distance. That’s how massive our star is. The Sun is a white star – not as big as a supergiant, and not as small as a red dwarf star. Imagine the gravity that planet would have. The 65 Best Travel Spots of Instagram’s Hottest Travel Influencers, The Woman Who Survived a 10,000 Foot Fall, Why We Need to Stop Telling Women to Smile. What would this hypothetical solar system look like? Betelgeuse , a red giant, is about 700 times bigger than the sun and about 14,000 times brighter. But compared to Earth, the Sun is enormous. If, hypothetically, the Sun was smaller than the Earth, our solar system would look completely different. It's 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius) at the surface, and 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15,000,000 degrees Celsius) in the core. It’s so big that it makes up over 99% of the mass of our entire solar system. The diameter of the Sun is approximately 864,948 miles while the diameter of Earth is only 7,926 miles. Bigger stars are hotter and bluer, while smaller ones are cooler and redder. How big is the Sun compared to the Earth? What If We Are Not the First Technologically Advanced Civilisation on Earth? Through geometric knowledge, he measured the duration of the threshold step. Since the Sun is the source of gravity that keeps us in orbit, all planets, the Earth included, would float away into space in search of another anchor. Eris: Originally designated 2003 UB313 (and nicknamed for the television warrior Xena by its discovery team), it is one of the largest known dwarf planets in our solar system. The bad news is, the Earth would be uninhabitable, and the Sun… well, this massive star may no longer be a star. But, the size difference between them is huge! If for any reason the Sun shrank smaller than the Earth, this shrunken Sun wouldn’t have the mass to create fusion and would burn out completely. What If The Earth Was Bigger Than The Sun? What If You Stepped Into The Vacuum of Space? This time, let’s make the Earth bigger than the Sun, while the Sun’s size remains the same. It would take the equivalent of 1.3 million Earths to fill up the volume of the Sun. Speaking in terms of volume, 1,300,000 Earths fit inside the Sun. That is, the sun reaches 19 times as far as the moon in relation to the Earth and because of its size, it can illuminate the entire solar system, including the moon. It’s so big that it makes up over 99% of the mass of our entire solar system. How small can stars get? Already the distance between Earth and Sun and between Earth and the moon was calculated 100 years before, by Aristarchus of Samus in 300 BC. Would our planet still orbit the Sun? What would happen if the earth was the size of the sun? Here’s what would happen if the Sun was smaller than the Earth. Put our Sun next to a supergiant star, and you wouldn’t even be able to spot it. First, you must know that Earth orbits the sun at a distance of approximately 150 million km. Copyright © 2018, INSH | Brought to you by Backyard Media Inc. What If: Science-Based Answers to Hypothetical Questions. Click on a planet or the Sun for details on composition, mass, gravity, and number of moons. It is necessary to line up the Earth end-to-end 109 times to fit across the length of the Sun. The methodology was as follows: “He simultaneously observed the moon in the fourth quarter and at sunset. This means that the size of our planet, the size of the Sun, and the distance between the two of us, is what has made it possible for life to evolve here on Earth. You can also zoom in and out on the planets or the Sun using the plus and minus buttons. It is large in comparison to the size of Earth and the other planets in the Solar System. What If the World Lost Oxygen for Five Seconds. Festival of Sacrifice: The Past and Present of the Islamic Holiday of Eid al-Adha. What If Insects Disappeared From The Planet? How big is the Sun compared to the Earth? In terms of radius, the Sun is about 109 times larger than Earth. That is, the sun reaches 19 times as far as the moon in relation to the Earth and because of its size, it can illuminate the entire solar system, including the moon. Your body couldn’t handle a gravitational pull strong enough to crush your bones. Light moves at 300,000 km per second. How much Bigger is the Sun than the Earth – The Sun is the central star of the solar system. All other bodies of the solar system, such as planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, and dust, as well as all satellites associated with these bodies, revolve around them. The Sun is responsible for 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System. Its mass is 333,000 times greater than that of Earth. Its average radius is 696,000 km, about 109 times the radius of the Earth. The volume of the Sun is 1,304,000 times greater than that of our planet. To measure the sizes of these stars it is necessary to know that the moon is 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun and that the Sun is 400 times larger than the moon in diameter. Yikes! It is necessary to line up the Earth end-to-end 109 times to fit across the length of the Sun. What If We Could Communicate From Brain to Brain? About a third of all stellar systems we’ve found so far are binary or multiple ones. Some of them even have stable habitable zones. Understood? Therefore, the Sun is greater than the moon and is farther from the Earth. Without the Earth's core, would we be just another nameless planet? Anything smaller than ten Earths wouldn’t be a star anymore, but rather a cold and dark stellar remnant. This galactic collision might be more impactful than you think. In the universe, size matters. What If the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies Collided? That’s very close to the theoretically necessary size of a star to sustain that fusion. When it comes to size, our Sun is small when compared to the size of some of the other stars in our galaxy. It only looks small from Earth because it’s 150 million km (93 million mi) away. Is the Coronavirus Crisis Increasing America's Drug Overdoses? The measured angle was around 87 ° “, explains the General Coordination of Space and Atmospheric Sciences of the National Institute of Space Research, through the Division of Astrophysics. But, what would happen if the Sun was smaller than our planet? It just so happens that the Earth is close enough to the Sun that it doesn’t freeze over like Mars. Earth’s mass would be at least 333,000 times bigger than it is now. In relative terms, think of Earth as being the size of the head of a pin and the Sun as being the size of a basketball. Our solar system would then have not just one, but two suns. Fact Check: What Power Does the President Really Have Over State Governors? It may be the biggest thing in this neighborhood, but the sun is just average compared to other stars. It’s also far enough away that it doesn’t get scorched like Venus. By definition, a star, whether it’s a supergiant or a red dwarf, is only a star when there’s thermonuclear fusion in its core. However, you will be surprised how small the Sun really is when it is compared to some of the largest stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. But compared to Earth, the Sun is enormous. But life could possibly evolve on other planets, or even the Moon. It only looks small from Earth because it’s 150 million km (93 million mi) away. Will 5G Impact Our Cell Phone Plans (or Our Health?! How Much Bigger Is the Sun Than the Earth. What If You Lived Fifty Years in the Future? How to Use the Planet Size Comparison Chart. It’s about the same size as Pluto but is three times farther from the Sun. It would become a binary star system with two stars orbiting around each other, and planets circling them both. A star’s mass determines its color and temperature. He calculated the distance and size of the moon during an eclipse. It is 864,000 miles (1,392,000 km) in diameter, which makes it 109 times wider than Earth. When the sun was on the horizon, Aristarchus measured the angular separation between the moon and the sun, which represents one of the angles of the right triangle Earth -Lu-Sun, whose vertex of the 90º angle is the moon. The first calculations were made by Hipparchus in the year 200 BC. Subscribe to What-If on Youtube or follow the show on Facebook Watch. So we have the feeling that the two are the same size. And the moon is smaller than the Sun, but it is closer to the Earth. In practice, this means that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is 7,300,000 km and that of the Earth in relation to the moon is only 389,000 km. In terms of radius, the Sun is about 109 times larger than Earth. But what if it this fiery ball of gas and plasma wasn’t the biggest thing in our solar system? We haven’t measured too many red dwarfs at this point, but the smallest one we came across has a mass of ten Earths. In practice, this means that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is 7,300,000 km and that of the Earth in relation to the moon is only 389,000 km. Obscure and not so well-known stories from History, Geography, Science and Culture.